The look of Christmas...

We had a great Christmas this year, spending time with our families. For the most part, the holiday was pretty typical. However, Collin and Ainsley both managed to get sick before Christmas and Ainsley is still battling some chest congestion. But overall, it was a great year! Here are a few pictures from the past week(s).

Making (and eating!) the gingerbread house

Sprinkling reindeer food for Santa's flight crew...

Leaving cookies for Santa...

And the insanity begins!!

Sweet sisters Hope and Kaylynn

Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus!

Here Comes Santa!

OK, I think I've finally figured out how to get the video on here upright, so that you don't have to turn your heads! Ainsley found this Santa hat in Collin's room and went around for quite a while saying, "Ho, Ho, Ho, Mewwy Kissmas!"

Ainsley's Christmas Program Video

As promised, here is the video of Ainsley's MDO Christmas program performance. Now, you will see how tired she was. She didn't really perform much the second go-round. The two pictures are from the morning performance, when she was nice and spunky!

Kids' Christmas Program

Today the kids had (and will still have) their music program at Mother's Day Out. I say had because they had a "dress rehearsal" earlier this morning, and they will have their true program again at 2:15. It was the cutest! Each class, well, except for the infants, got up on stage in the sanctuary and sang 1 or 2 songs. And my two actually participated this year! Last year Collin wasn't feeling well and/or got a case of stagefright and wouldn't go sing. And Ainsley was in the infant class last year, so her class didn't participate. I am sad (and infuriated!) to say that my camcorder failed me! I didn't get Ainsley's on video yet, but will get it when I go back to the church this afternoon. Hopefully she'll cooperate as well as she did this morning! I managed to catch Collin's performance on video with the video option on my camera. So, it's grainy and poor quality, but I guess it's better than nothing at all!

Here are the videos of Collin's class singing. I especially love the parts where Collin starts picking his nose. Priceless...

An Interesting Reading Nook...

This has become Ainsley's favorite reading spot. And if you can't understand her, she's reading a WALL-E book, and is saying "Eva."

Christmas in the Park

Last night was the last night of festivities out at Central Park, so kind of on a whim I decided to take the kiddos out there. Jeremy was at work, so I was very brave and took them all by myself! It was crazy with hundreds of people, so we didn't get to do a whole lot. I let Collin decide between standing in line to see Santa or standing in line to ride the hayride. He chose the hayride, of course! I only managed to snap these 5, not-so-good photos!

Going stir crazy in the very long line for the hayride...

Not gonna get any closer than this!

Baby, It's COLD Outside!

We were pleasantly surprised to see snow this morning when we woke up. I knew it snowed a little bit before we went to bed, but I really thought it would be gone by morning. Then, this afternoon the snow started back up, so I scrambled to get the kids dressed and bundled up so that we could go play in the snow before it stopped. I was certain that it would be over in about 10 minutes. But it snowed for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening! I have never, in all my 31 years of living in Texas, seen it snow like this! I took lots of pictures - who knows when we'll see it snow like this again!

Collin & Ainsley were trying to make snow angels...

The dogs LOVE the snow!

Our first little snowmanAunt Janice came to play in the snow after work...And built a "BIG" snowman at Collin's request!The kids (and dogs) having fun in the snow!

BCS Christmas Parade

Last Sunday we took the kids to the Bryan/College Station Christmas parade. This year there were well over 100 entries and about halfway through the kids were pooped and ready to go! It was a great parade and hopefully we can go again next year!

Collin loved all the tractors and farm equipment in the parade!

Tow-Mater and Lightning McQueen! Too cute!

Collin and cousin Landon enjoying the floats

Dinner with Santa

This evening we went to the Dinner with Santa event at our church. The kids had a really fun time. Here are some pictures from our time!

Ainsley being cheesy for the camera

This is Collin waiting to see Santa. He was super-excited!

Notice someone missing from the Santa picture? Yep, that's right. She screamed again this year and would have no part of it.

The kids checking out the Christmas tree

And yanking on each others' arms

Collin making "reindeer food" aka raw oatmeal w/glitter

Ainsley coloring - her favorite!

And a pretty decent picture of the four of us!